On January 17, 1894, a couple stood before a minister at the Vendom Hotel in Denver, Colorado.

Henry Howard and Georgiana Yoke were about to be married.

Standing near them was their witness, a woman named Minnie Williams.

The bride had come from Indiana to escape a scandalous reputation and had found work

in Chicago at a store owned by Henry.

She was a tall, slender woman, about 25 years of age, with blue eyes and blonde hair,

and she was madly in love with Henry.

It sounds wonderful.

It sounds perfect, actually.

But there was trouble and paradise even before they met the minister there at the hotel.

As you see, Henry was already married. He was, in fact, married to two other women, and

Minnie, the woman standing as witness, was actually Henry's mistress of over a year.

Even Henry's name was fake. His real name had been abandoned long before, and it would

be months before Georgiana would discover who he really was.

Sometimes we think we know a person, only to discover that we were fooled.

Community is built on trust, and that trust allows us to make connections, to let down our

guard and to feel safe.

When that trust is broken, though, our minds quickly shift to disappointment and stress,

and outright fear.

And sure, it happens less often now in the age of Facebook and social media, but in the

late 1800s, very little stood in the way of a person falsifying their identity.

And Henry Howard, or whoever he was prior to that moment in Denver, had turned that skill

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